babycat

I have recently noticed in the last year or so a lot friends kind of around my age group like 32-38 really seem to be realizing the need to quit or at least scale back a lot on their drinking (which really usually means they probably need to quit). I am in the same boat, obviously. I think we were able to party our way through our 20s and then everyone else grew up and we found ourselves like, "Well, oh ****. This seems to no longer be the fun party in once was. This behavior actually does have the consequences we were warned about in middle and high school health classes."
Anyone else find this to be true among your friends and acquaintances, the 30s being a big time for people realizing they have to make a change? I just have found it interesting.

AtomicBlue

A good number of my friends (in our 30s) who aren’t alcoholics just naturally cut back or pretty much quit because of having families and growing up I guess. I think that’s what normal people do. Which can lead the rest of us with fewer people to party with and coming to the realization your talking about.

babycat

Yes!! Yes, very true. "What do you mean you can't find a sitter?? Can't you just call your mom? Let's get wasted!" Not exactly a mature way of thinking.

Fearlessat50

Hi Babycat, I have totally experienced this. You are not alone. Wait till your late forties -fifties. You will see a lot more folks like that, wanting to cut back or stop completely. You will also see a lot more folks with alcoholism and medical problems both from drinking and other bad and unhealthy choices.

My sobriety does not exist in a vacuum. I’ve always exercised. But I’ve really had to clean up my diet and reduce my stress and change other lifestyle habits. Making sobriety part of my overall wellness has made me so much happier and healthier. I’m finding this to be true of others in my age group too. 50 really is the new 30 if you take care of yourself

Jeregretterien

I’m 33 and I’m the one making the change. I don’t get preachy but I see it makes my peers reflect on their habits when I tell them. I think it just gets harder to recover and we realize it’s time to take life a bit more seriously. It’s no longer funny to be that drunk party girl. It’s embarrassing and I’ve got more to lose.

WhoDeyPI

I'm 31, and my friends are between 29-37ish. I've definitely found that most of them have cut down on drinking. Their reasons for doing so differ...but you're right, most have found that there is more to life than just getting drunk.

SIB

I am 38 but if I've learned one thing its that age doesn't matter at all. You'll always have the people that have one or two drinks and then the people that go for the blackout. 25 or 65 it doesn't matter.

DriGuy

I remember that. Some of my friends seemed like they just lost interest in drinking. At times I felt like they had abandoned me, and that I was left to drink alone. Not one of them ever said to me, "I don't do that anymore," or even talked about alcoholism, but it became obvious that they could no longer be depended on. I was saddened, and wondered if I had done something to throw a wrinkle in our friendship.

Although, I still had a few friends who were hard core like myself. Like someone pointed out, the non-alcoholics naturally drifted away from partying as they matured, while the alcoholic prone remained the same for a while, and even began to lose control with the passing years.

As the division between the alcoholics and normies widened, I started questioning my own drinking habits. I was able to hang on to my ever worsening drinking problem for several more years because my alcoholic friends reassured me that I did not have a problem.

I've heard recovering alcoholics in meetings say, they are grateful to be alcoholics, and I get how wonderful it feels when you quit smashing your head with a hammer, so I kind of get it, but I can muster not one glimmer of gratitude for the part of my life I wasted. I'm grateful to be in recovery; No question about that, but I threw away a lot of my best years that I can't get back.

Evoo

I think a lot of folks who aren't alcoholics (but party and drink in their 20s) start toning it down naturally as they get married and develop new life priorities. You no longer feel invincible, you have people who depend on you *for real.*

But for the alcoholic, where others start to curtail drinking and moderate, they can become isolated and spend more time drinking alone, in private, to excess -- rinse, wash, repeat. The "social" situations become even less common than the night at home with a bottle.

August252015

Very much so, especially among women. Lots of good discussion out there these days about the whole spectrum of drinking habits.

I was 39 when I quit - my 40s have been the best decade so far (I will have 3 yr next wk, so I am 42 and a half!).

Glad you are here.

WeThinkNot

A few years ago I got a DUI and had to take the mandatory education/counseling. My counselor was a guy pushing his 80s and he had just celebrated 40 years of sobriety!

He claimed that most people who commit to recovery make the decision between the ages of 35-45. Before the age of 35 you still feel young and invincible. After the age of 45 you are too set in your ways. I'm not sure where he got this statistic but the reasoning behind it seems valid.

For myself I will say this: my current sobriety started when I was 38 years old, I'm 40 now. My mortality was definitely in the forefront of my thoughts when I made the decision. I felt like I had wasted my 20s and 30s but still had enough time to live a long and fruitful life if I put in the work.

DreamCatcher17

I was ust talking to a friend about this.

I believe in your 20's it is about fun, games, experimenting, etc...
In your 30's hat is when the true adulting happens, and life goes to the next chapter of family, career, babies, travel... More sophisticated.

That's my input.
Glad to be sober for almost all of my 30's thus far.

NerfThis

Yep as DreamCatcher17 said, when you hit your 30's your responsibilities change. If you actually have a drinking problem, you'll notice it's holding you back from important things, rather than being the wonderful focus of those fun nights out when you were in your 20's.


I quit last year a week before turning 35 and I know a handful of other friends who did the same just as they hit that age, but my drinking worried me when I hit 30.


I think we have a stronger sense of our own mortality when we get to our early 30s. Drinking excessively turns from a standard party activity to something we can't control and might very well kill us. It turns from fun to frightening if we're the excessive/alcoholic drinking type.

Lipstuck

Dreamcatcher, I would say about this that what was fun in my 20s and early 30s (drinking with friends and the occasional cocktail at home) "helped" me "cope" with the pressure of adulting in my mid to late 30s. I'm grateful that I understand it for the problem it is sooner rather than later but I wish it had never been a problem at all.

SoberCAH

BC -

Your observations are precisely what happened in my late 20's and early 30's.

People I liked to "party" with grew up, they bought houses and a good many of them started having children (which I viewed as tantamount to an Old Testament plague (e.g. locusts).

Hence, they really wouldn't come around our favorite bar on week nights very much and, when they did, they would have 1 or 2 beers.

I felt abandoned also.

I was left there with the other alcoholics.

They had grown up (from being heavy drinkers) and I continued to just sit on a barstool every night.

It was embarrassing (as it should have been).

The thing that was the real motivator for me, though, was my complete inability to learn how to practice my profession.

It was particularly hard in the constant funk with the chronic hangover I found myself in.

I certainly didn't want to be fired, but my work performance was awful.

So, only then, did I seek help for my drinking problem.

I was 31 and miserable.

Most elements of my life were in tatters.

So I asked for help and found it.

I'm glad I didn't wait a day longer, because my health was also failing me.

When I got sober, I experienced an epiphany in which I learned that most people don't get drunk every night or much at all, that I didn't have to go out and burn a village and drive drunk to have a good time and that I could have a fairly "normal" life if I just got and stayed sober.

Glad you brought up this point.

It reminds me of being a newly sober young man.